The Pittsburgh Steelers can’t stop the run or run the ball. Given their DNA (and six Super Bowl titles), that is as sad as Frank Sinatra forgetting how to sing.
And as shocking as Albert Einstein flunking algebra.
If things aren’t bad enough in Tomlinville, what appears to be the Steelers’ grand plan at quarterback ain’t looking so grand.
They are sitting on a mountain of 2026 draft capital. The smart money has them expending whatever of it is needed to move up in the first round and select the rightful heir to Ben Roethlisberger.
The problem is that timing appears to be flipping them the bird.
As meh as the 2025 NFL Draft QB class was – it is best known for the Shedeur Sanders circus until further notice – next year isn’t exactly shaping up as a repeat of 1983. Or 2004.
Texas’ Arch Manning completed 44 percent of his passes last Saturday against UTEP. Those boos he heard while walking off the field at halftime weren’t for the Longhorns’ drum major. Turns out it takes more than a surname to beat a Cover 2.
Clemson is 1-2 largely because Cade Klubnik has also not lived up to his preseason billing. Like Manning, he makes the occasional wow throw. But he lost a fumble and threw a bad interception in the Tigers’ loss at Georgia Tech last Saturday.
Klubnik has the size and the arm and requisite recruiting stars that entice NFL teams, but he has yet to put it all together. The same can be said of Penn State’s Drew Allar.
He threw a critical interception in the Nittany Lions’ College Football Playoffs semifinal loss to Notre Dame last January, again shrinking on a big stage. Allar has since underwhelmed against the Murderer’s Row, also known as Nevada, Florida International and Villanova. Next Saturday night against visiting Oregon will be telling.
LSU is one of the early stories of the year in college football after big wins against Clemson and Florida, but Garrett Nussmeier has been more passenger than driver of the Tigers’ success.
Manning (if he declares), Klubnik, Allar and Nussmeier are far from the only QBs in the 2026 draft class. They are emblematic of why it doesn’t look nearly as good as it did a mere three weeks ago.
The good news for the Steelers is that so much can change from now until late April.
Maybe Carson Beck fully rehabilitates his once-high draft stock at Miami (FL) after Georgia did not exactly call in the state National Guard to stop him from transferring.
Maybe South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers emerges as a clear-cut first-round pick. The talented dual-threat QB completed six of his seven passes last Saturday before getting knocked out of the game with a concussion. Without Sellers, the 11th-ranked Gamecocks got demolished by Vanderbilt.
Maybe Oklahoma’s John Mateer’s ascent turns into a meteoric rise. Not Joe Burrow’s meteoric rise, but something like that. Same with Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza.
Of course, it can go the other way, too.
A year ago, Nico Iamaleava looked like a future first-round pick. He tried to play NIL hardball at the worst time, and Tennessee told him to get lost.
He has done just that since transferring to UCLA. The Bruins are 0-3 and just fired their head coach after a 35-10 loss to New Mexico. Iamaleava has three touchdown passes and three interceptions.
He will have a lot of explaining to do when it is his time to go through the pre-draft process.
All NFL hopefuls do, but none more so than quarterbacks. It is the most important position in professional sports – in part because it is so hard to project who will succeed in the NFL.
Impossibly hard if you are the Fightin’ Jimmy Haslams.
But the reality is that the Steelers probably won’t be in a better position to draft the QB they want next April anytime soon, especially since they won’t rebuild unless one is forced on them.
They just better hope tomorrow’s NFL franchise QBs have simply been slow to reveal themselves.
